Nine
by WinnieTherPooh
Summary: Fitz's recovery comes in increments of nine. Nine days, nine minutes, nine weeks, nine months, ninety feet underwater- you get the picture. Spoilerish for Season 1 finale and the first few episodes of season 2. Fitzsimmons, Skimmons brOTP
1. Nine Days

**A/N: I do not own Marvel, or Agents of SHIELD. Please leave reviews. =D**

Nine days. Nine days without a sign of life beyond the steady beeping of the heart monitor. Nine days of waiting for Fitz to wake up.

"Jemma?" Skye was standing at the door, holding a mug. "I made you some tea."

Jemma looked up at Skye. Her face was pale, marked with tears. "Thank you, Skye."

"You should get some rest." Skye told her, coming to sit in one of the other chairs in the room. "It's late. Almost midnight."

Jemma shook her head. "I don't want to leave. What if he wakes up and I'm not here?"

"Jemma. If you don't get some sleep, you won't be here." Skye put her hand on Jemma's shoulder. Simmons began to tear up. The simple, comforting feeling reminded her of Fitz, and how he had put his hand on her shoulder at the last second. "I'll stay here with Fitz."

"Do you remember when we were at the Academy?" Jemma asked Skye, fighting to keep herself from crying again. "We were teasing him for looking so young." Simmons laughed a little through her tears. "He was so angry. He told us that we would be jealous of him someday."

"I remember that. He told us that we'd be jealous, wrinkly old hags." Skye chuckled with Jemma.

"I've never seen him looking as young as he looks now." Jemma sobbed, putting her hands over her face. "He looks like a child. I'd never dream of teasing him again. I just want Fitz back."

"Jemma." Skye gave her friend a hug, squeezing her warmly. Jemma put her head on her shoulder, crying uncontrollably. "Fitz is going to come back. He'll be awake before you know it, and everything will be the same."

"I wish I could believe you, Skye." Simmons lifted her head from Skye's shoulder, and wiped off her face. "But I'm a doctor. I know what brain damage looks like. He's not going to be the same. He won't _ever_ be the same, and because he had to be such a bloody hero."

"There's brain damage?" Skye's whole face dropped as she whispered in a traumatized voice. "Nobody told me."

"I'm the only one that knows, yet." Simmons told her. "They showed me some of his scans. It's why he's taken so long to wake up."

"Is it from the coma? I don't know anything about this." Skye was crying now, not sobbing, just tears trickling down her face. "Why haven't you told anybody?"

"It's called hypoxia. Because he gave me the oxygen when—when Ward dropped us onto the ocean floor. His brain went without oxygen for too long. I haven't told anybody because I want to hope that he'll be all right when he wakes up. I know, it's stupid, but still-"

"It's not stupid, Jemma. It's hope. And right now, it's all the hope we have. He's going to wake up, and he'll be the same Fitz that saved your life, that's saved all of our lives. You'll see."

"I want to believe you, Skye. I really do, but—" Jemma was distracted by a change in the sound of the monitors. Her head spun back to look at Fitz.

His blue eyes were looking right at her.


	2. Nine Minutes

It wasn't like she had had a timer running, or anything. But he stayed awake for nine minutes that first time.

"Fitz? You're awake." Simmons took his hand. Skye backed towards the door, wanting to give them that minute alone. Simmons looked at her for a second, begging her to stay. "How do you feel?"

He gave her a confused look. "Jemma?"

"Yes, Fitz. It's me." Jemma smiled encouragingly.

"You made it, then." She could see the smile in his eyes, even though it didn't show on his face.

"Yes, Fitz, because of you. Thank you." She said, blinking back her tears of happiness.

"Then why, uh, why am I here?" He asked, looking up at the ceiling. His eyes roved around the room, trying to find something that would tell him where he was, and why.

Jemma bit her lip. She hadn't thought of how she would explain the predicament. "You were unconscious." She decided on, moving forward carefully.

"From the, uh, the-" He looked frustrated.

"The water pressure."

"Yes, that." Fitz nodded a little. Jemma was surprised to see that he was trying to keep his mouth from quivering. She could see the tears swelling in his eyes. "But I'm here."

"Yes, you made it. We both made it." Jemma nodded.

"Something's wrong. I wasn't supposed to be here." He looked up at her, pleading in his eyes. "What's wrong with me, Jemma?"

She almost full out lost it there. Skye was moving closer to them, and she let her take over the conversation. "Hey Fitz."

"Skye." His eyes met hers, and she got a glimpse of the pain and confusion in them. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, Fitz. What do you mean?" Skye asked him, hoping that he would forgive a merciful lie for the first few minutes of being awake.

"Something-" Fitz gestured towards his head with his right hand, the one that wasn't in a sling. "It's not right."

"You just have to give it time, Fitz. You just woke up. Give yourself some time." Skye encouraged him, trying to encourage herself and Jemma as well.

"Yeah, all right." Fitz's eyes slipped shut again as he dozed back into sleep again.

"Jemma! Is he going into a coma again? What's happening?" Skye asked, consternation spreading over her face.

Jemma looked up, the first tears trickling out of the corners of her eyes. "He's just sleeping. It's expected." Standing up, she wiped her eyes and went out to the hallway. "I don't want to wake him, not when he's just been woken up." She looked up at Skye, shaking her head. "I think we have to tell the team, Skye. There's something wrong with him, and lying to ourselves or him won't help it."

"Can't we give it more time, before we just give up on him like that? What if it is just him trying to readjust to the world after waking up. He was asleep for nine _days_. That would throw anybody off." Skye argued.

"It's not giving up on him, Skye, it's recognizing that he needs help, so that we can give it to him." Jemma snapped back. "Besides, Coulson is expecting a report, and when I tell him that Fitz woke up, I can't just lie to him and say that he's normal."

"But what if he is normal?" Skye's voice was breaking. "What if we treat him like he's damaged, and then he isn't?"

"What if we treat him like he isn't, and then he breaks down because we expect too much of him?" Jemma fired back. "I know you care about him, Skye, and believe me, I do too. But that's not something we can play around with. Brain damage is a serious thing, and it needs to be treated appropriately."

"Fine." Skye swallowed down the choke in her throat. "Go tell Coulson that he woke up. I'll stay here with him."


	3. Nine Hours

**A/N: I live! Please review!**

"How long has he been sleeping?" Coulson asked. He had followed Jemma to Fitz's room in the ICU as soon as she had shared that something might be wrong.

"Only a few minutes, sir." Jemma said.

"Don't wake him." Coulson said, "It'll be better for him to wake up naturally. How soon do you think we could know?"

"I think it would be best to let him sleep." Jemma said. "There are tests that we can do, scans, things to determine what is going on."

"Why didn't we catch this sooner?" Coulson demanded.

Jemma bit her lip. "We did know, sir. They told me that when they brought him in, they ran a CT and an MRI, and detected that there might be something wrong. They said that we wouldn't be able to know the extent of the injury until he woke up."

"And you didn't feel the need to share this?"

"I was hoping for the best." Jemma said. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Where is his doctor?" Coulson asked. "I want to talk to them, and figure out exactly what we're looking at."

It ended up being nine hours before Fitz woke up again. Nine hours of waiting, theorizing, and being prepared for the worst.

Skye was still sitting by his bed. Coulson had forced Jemma to go take a rest, and most of the base was quiet. "Skye?"

"Yeah?" Skye said, rousing herself from the chair. "Hey Fitz. How are you feeling?"

"I, um, it's hard to say." He said quietly. "It's-" his eyes roamed the ceiling above him, his brow wrinkled as he looked for the right word. "Different."

"I know." Skye said, taking his hand. "We know. But we're going to get you better, okay? You're going to be just fine." She looked away hastily. "Uh, how about some water?"

He nodded, and sipped wearily from the straw she offered him. "Where's Jemma?" He asked, looking around in alarm. "Did War-the water?"

"She made it, Fitz. You saved her." Skye reassured him. "She's sleeping now." Reaching for her phone, she texted a quick message to Coulson: _He's awake, but he doesn't remember waking up this morning._

Fitz's eyes flickered to the phone. "What day-"

"It's been nine days, Fitz. Almost ten." Skye told him, guessing his question before he finished. He looked confused. "You were in a coma for nine days." She repeated. "That's why you're here, in the hospital."

"Nine." Fitz said, letting his head rest back on the pillows. "Jemma's okay?"

"Jemma's totally fine. You saved her life, Fitz. You're a hero."


	4. Nine Seconds, Nine Steps

**A/N: If this chapter seems disjointed, it's because we're taking a look from Fitz's perspective. The italics are a memory of a conversation with Jemma (who else). Please review! Pretty please?**

Nine seconds of standing, his hands gripping the bars of his support so tightly that his knuckles were white. Then he collapsed back into the wheelchair, beads of sweat standing out on his pale forehead. "That was excellent, Agent Fitz." The therapist said, her eyes disturbingly bright and her coral lipstick strangely irritating.

"No." Fitz shook his head.

"Fitz, it was great. That was the longest you've been up." Skye encouraged him from the back of the room. "Just keep pushing. You'll be on your feet in no time."

"Yeah, sure." Fitz said, his fingers tapping the arms of the wheelchair in an incessant pattern. Doctor Lipstick had told him to try moving his fingers as therapy for his damaged hand. It was his lifeline now, something about his damaged body that seemed easy enough.

"Should we try it again?" Doctor Lipstick asked, so perky that he wanted to slap her. "Just one more rep, and then we'll move on to something else."

"I'm not stupid." Fitz said, suddenly. "Just, uh-" The room was silent as he snapped his fingers in agitation. "Weak. That's why the, uh, the standing is hard."

"Of course, Agent Fitz! It's a natural occurrence after an accident such as yours. We're just reminding your body of what you do when you stand up, and when you walk."

"Yeah." Fitz said, staring at the tapping fingers of his left hand.

"So do you want to try again?" Doctor Lipstick was annoying.

"No."

"Okay." Doctor Lipstick said, pushing him towards the table. "We'll try something else. Something for your hand and your-"

"And my waterlogged brain." Fitz said, bitterly.

"Fitz." Doctor Lipstick put her hand over his. He jerked it away. "You have to stop bashing yourself. You won't heal if you keep destroying your own confidence. You will get better. You are not waterlogged, and you're not stupid. You survived a traumatic brain injury, and your progress is already monumental. We're taking baby steps here. You don't have to run a marathon, you don't have to build a space shuttle. Just stand up. Solve this Rubik's cube." She tossed the colorful cube towards him. He reached out to grab it, but it slipped through his left hand, falling to the floor. There was a pause. Lipstick picked it up, and handed it to him.

He held it dumbly for a few minutes. Lipstick got up, and turned on classical music from the ancient stereo that she somehow wrangled into life. _It's a fascinating study, Fitz, where people recovered some brain function after a traumatic brain injury. And all that they did was play some music. If I'm ever brain dead, you should play the Doctor Who theme song, and I'll come right back._

The cube felt right in his hand. He had done this a thousand times before, more than that, and on much more complicated puzzles. He could solve this. He knew how.

It hit the wall with a satisfying bang. Lipstick turned from her desk, her intensely agitating eyes taking in the situation in an instant. The spinning rolling chair that she used shot towards him. He flinched.

Skye exclaimed something.

"Fitz." Lipstick was in front of him. "What was that?"

"I'm brain dead." Fitz said. "I can't solve the damn puzzle. I can, uh, I can see why Simmons would leave."

"You know that's not true." Lipstick could be strangely reassuring, but he didn't want reassuring.

"Yeah? And how do I know that? She leaves, she's gone. Not a word. Just, uh, sneaks out in the night like a burglar. One night she takes me to dinner, and I spill wine down my shirt, and I'm angry, and the next-she's gone." Lipstick was quiet. "And now I can't solve the damn puzzle. I'm stupid."

The silence lasted for a minute or two after Fitz's outburst. He reached up his hand quickly to dash away the unwelcome tears. "You're not stupid. Your brain doesn't forget things, Fitz. Your memories are still there. Everything you knew is still there. We just have to figure out how to access them again. There are backup files to everything you know, Leopold. I want to help you figure out how to use them. We're working on everything. Your hand, your motor skills, your brain, even the walking. You have to fight for yourself, Fitz. Don't accept stupid."

"I want to try it again." Fitz said suddenly.

"The Rubik's cube?" Lipstick asked.

"Walking." Fitz said. "I want to walk again."

Nine seconds turned into thirty. Thirty seconds turned into a minute. Fitz looked up to find Skye. The back of the room was empty. She left. She thinks I'm hopeless. Everybody thinks I'm hopeless.

"Fitz, look at me." Lipstick said, as if she had guessed what he was thinking.

Coral lipstick. Freakishly annoying.

"I don't want people to keep walking away from me." Fitz said, his arms straining.

"Then walk after them." Lipstick said.

A glance to where Skye had stood. A quick brush over the painful memory of Jemma's abandonment. An attempt to not even think about the man who had put him in this position.

A decision to fight it all.

One step. Three steps.

Nine steps towards recovery.


	5. Ninety-Nine Days

**A/N: We're getting close to the end! I think there'll be one more chapter. Please review!**

Ninety-nine days until he is finally in the lab by himself. It's strange being alone, after the months of near-constant attention from medical professionals.

The strangest thing is being in the lab without Jemma. It's quiet now. There is no chatter, nobody to bounce ideas with, and nobody to help him.

The silence is too much. It's not just in the lab either. Skye won't talk very much around him, and neither will anybody else. There's silence everywhere.

There's a new engineer, Mack. He's turned the old lab into a garage for his bike. Fitz finds himself in there more and more often. Mack doesn't ask him to talk, and he doesn't treat him like he's fragile. Mack calls him Turbo. Mack is his friend.

It's only a few days before Jemma comes back. She always answers when Fitz talks to her. She's always there when he needs her.

He needs her the most when Coulson asks him to help with a cloaking device. This should be easy for him. He's done it before. But every time he gets close to it, his hand slips, and then it's ruined. Jemma encourages him as much as she can, but he can feel the stares and the pity coming from the team.

He knows that Coulson called a team meeting without him. He knows how to get into the security system of the base and watch the camera feed from Coulson's office. He knows that Coulson doubts that he'll ever fully recover. Coulson tells him not to worry about the cloaking device anymore. He knows that they stole a quinjet and then used that technology to build the cloaking device.

But Jemma's there. Jemma understands. Jemma keeps encouraging him to use his hand, to make it stronger.

Jemma's the one who encourages him to tell Mack about his device for stopping Creel. But she's gone when the other SHIELD scientists don't understand him. He looks for her, but she's not there anymore. She's not there when he sweeps everything off the table.

But Mack understands now. Mack tells them to leave. Mack knows that they were laughing at him. Mack helps him find the design.

He looks for Jemma later, when Hunter offers him a beer. She's there again, but somehow he doesn't think he needs her as much anymore. She tells him to make friends.

Mack is his friend. And Jemma is gone.


	6. Nine Years

**A/N: This is the last chapter, y'all. I've really enjoyed writing this fic. Please please leave reviews and let me know how you liked it. I hope you did, because I've put a lot of time and heart into it. If you have any suggestions for another fic, please don't hesitate to let me know.**

Nine years had passed. Nine years of therapy, years of struggling to return to his previous standard of living.

Nine years of bliss. Years of marriage to the love of his life.

"Knock-knock." Fitz lifted his head as Daisy pushed open the door of the Fitzsimmons Lab. "I hate to bother you guys, I know that you're working, but the kids want to go to the pool. Are you okay with that?"

Fitz turned around. "Yeah, fine by me. Simmons doesn't mind, do you Simmons?" Jemma nodded imperceptibly. "Simmons is fine with it."

"Daddy!" The little girl pushed past Daisy into the lab, running towards Fitz with her arms wide.

"Chloe!" Fitz scooped his daughter up into his arms, bouncing her on his hip with a smile. "Come on, let's leave Mum alone. She's about to make scientific history, did you know that? Your mum's a genius, little C. Here, Daisy, I'll go with you."

"Are you sure about that, Fitz?" Jemma looked up from her work. "I know you-"

They made eye contact briefly. 'I'll be fine, Jems. I'll just sit on the steps, and let the littles play."

"All right." Jemma said, going back to her microscope. "Thank you, Leo."

Fitz smiled, jiggling Chloe a bit more. "Come on, where's Iain?"

The pool was probably one of the least used facilities in the Playground. A few agents used it to stay in shape, and there were some survival training sessions that had been instated after the integrity of the medical pods were called into question. But that was rare, and the most frequent users of the pool were Iain and Chloe, the Fitzsimmons children.

Daisy and Fitz sat on the side while the children splashed and raced. Fitz had insisted that they take swim lessons from an early age, but he himself avoided swimming at all costs.

"How are you today, Fitz?" Daisy asked, kicking up a few drops of water with her feet.

"A little stir crazy." Fitz said restlessly. "That's why I came down here so easily. It's hard to work in the lab today."

"Nine years today, isn't it?" Daisy confirmed. "It's amazing, Fitz. You've gone through so much, and look where you are."

"Mhmm." Fitz said, "I'm trying not to think about it."

"Daddy, will you swim with us?" Chloe was just below him in the water, looking up at him with Jemma's eyes. "Please Daddy?"

"Chloe." Iain whispered to her. "Daddy doesn't like the water, remember? Don't make him get in."

Fitz stared blankly into the distance for a minute, thinking. "You know what, let's swim." He said, standing up and walking around to the stairs.

"Are you sure, Fitz?" Daisy asked. "I can get in with them."

"It's been nine years today, Skye. Daisy." Fitz reminded her. "It's time to face it."

Chloe and Iain were ecstatic as he entered the water. They splashed around him, pulling on his arms. Iain climbed onto his shoulders, and Fitz suddenly found himself underwater. Instantly he lifted his head, but the eight year old was heavy, and Fitz struggled to get his head above water and get the breath he needed. With a frantic surge, he jerked above water, sending Iain flying backwards off his shoulders. Fitz grabbed for the wall, panting for breath. Everything came back in a rush. I know you care about us Ward, and none is destroyed, there's only enough for one of us, please, let me show you-

"Fitz!" Daisy shook his shoulder. "Fitz, are you okay?"

The pool was silent. Iain and Chloe had stopped splashing and were staring at him. "I don't know," He whispered. "It all came back."

"Daddy?" It was Iain now. "Daddy, will you throw me again?"

"Do you want me to go get Simmons?" Daisy offered him a towel to dry off his face.

"No." Fitz said, "No. I'm going to stay in. The first time is the worst. But I've beaten this, Daisy. I'm going to go play with my son."

"And your daughter." Chloe interjected indignantly. "Don't forget about me."

"How could I forget about you, little C?" Fitz laughed. "I'm going to be fine, Daisy. I am fine. It has taken nine years, but I'm not afraid of going underwater anymore."


End file.
